On this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che covered a wide array of topics, ranging from the Jon Gruden scandal to the announcement of a bisexual Superman and beyond.
Jost noted that Raiders head coach Gruden resigned “after the discovery of homophobic, misogynistic and racist emails he sent,” acknowledging that “clearly, the emails are indefensible.
“But does anyone want to be judged by their old emails? I mean, if you could see half of the emails [Michael] Che sends me…Actually, I’ll show you one,” he continued. “The subject line says ‘LISTEN UP HONKY’ and then the body of the email just says ‘I wish they got you instead of Harambe.’”
Jost later addressed DC Comics’ recent announcement that the new Superman will be bisexual. “They also announced,” he joked, “that The Riddler has always been down for whatever.”
Che weighed in on the streaming wars, noting claims by experts that Disney+ “will surpass” Netflix by 2026 to become the top streaming platform in the world. “‘Not so fast,’ said Pornhub,” he joked.
Che also spoke to the fact that the California ranch once owned by Ronald Reagan is being threatened by a large wildfire. “Crews are hoping to put out the blaze by pouring water onto a nearby hill,” he deadpanned, “and hoping it trickles down.”
Later on Weekend Update, conversation turned to a viral first-look photo of Timothée Chalamet as Willy Wonka in the upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel, Wonka.
Jost pointed out that “many on social media [are] calling him a ‘Twink Willy Wonka,’” then introducing “A Proud Gay Oompa Loompa” (played by Bowen Yang) to comment on the matter, only to be told he’d just outed the Oompa Loompa on live television.
“I just came here to make a statement on our impending factory strike,” Yang said, “but now I guess I’ve got to call my parents.” (The cast member was clearly referencing the IATSE strike averted earlier tonight in his first line, closing out his appearance at the desk by exclaiming, “I’m in IATSE!”)
Jost and Che were subsequently joined by Chris Redd, who had planned a segment on “very important unimportant news.” It turned out, in the end, that he was there to address the comment he made the last time he was on Update, in February of 2020—that being that “Black people can’t get the coronavirus.”
The Update anchors joked that this off-the-cuff comment hasn’t aged all that well. “Ok in my defense, I was just saying something crazy,” admitted Redd. “I’m not a scientist; I went to community college.”
The night’s final panelists were hypnotist Linus Minus (Mikey Day), whose show has been “the talk of Broadway’s reopening,” and his easily hypnotized volunteer, Roy (Kenan Thompson).
We’ll update this story with video when it comes in.